


Resurrection

by boxoftheskyking



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 03:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11477652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxoftheskyking/pseuds/boxoftheskyking
Summary: I haven't seen any of Season 4.Caleb gets taken."Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated" the fic





	Resurrection

**Author's Note:**

> I have not seen any of Season 4, so hush, I know I'm missing some big stuff
> 
> I just wanted Ben to have feelings and Caleb to be the glorious cockroach that he is and Simcoe to die horribly.

“I don’t like it. We don’t have nearly enough to go off of; you’re running in without knowing what you’re running in to.” Ben paces to the table and back flipping through the papers that don’t hold as much information as he’d hoped.

“Don’t worry about it, Tallboy. There’ll just be eight of us, hardly enough to warrant notice.” Caleb reached out for his shoulder, holding him still. “You can’t worry yourself over every little thing. Right? It’s a good group of men you’ve given me.”

“Maybe it’s you I’m worried about.” Had he slept longer the night before, or more over the past few weeks, he most likely wouldn’t have said it. It’s worth it, though, for the creases around Caleb’s eyes and the firm grasp on the back of his neck.

“Ah, Ben, you know I’ll be back before you can think to miss me.”

Ben nods. He should say something, in case this is the last time they see each other, but speaking more seems like a bad omen. He leans forward, instead, pressing his forehead to Caleb’s for a moment. Caleb pulls away, gives him a nod, and slips out of the tent without a sound.

\---

It’s two days later when the company returns. Ben is in Washington’s tent discussing strategy, trying to read Billy Lee’s face for his true opinions of Washington’s next plan. The boy who comes in to report can’t be more than seventeen, his face smeared with blood from a head wound that probably looks worse than it is. 

“I’m sorry, Sir,” the boy says in a rough voice. “It was the Rangers, Sir, and I don’t know how they knew we’d be there.”

“God damn these Rangers,” Ben growls, slamming his fists into the table. “What were your losses?”

“Lost four men, Sir. They let the rest of us go, said it was a message. Sent us with a memento, Sir, that’s what the captain said.”

“Simcoe was there?” Ben asked, fury rising again. “If Abe had only killed him when he had the chance.”

“What else, Private?” Washington asks, piercing eyes fixed on him.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” the boy looks between them, frightened. “They got Lieutenant Brewster, Sir.”

And Ben sees for the first time the arm hanging at his side, the wide-brimmed hat clutched in his bloodstained fingers.

“Captured?” Washington asks.

“No sir. Though they took his body, Sir. I saw him, there weren’t no way he survived it, Sir. Took a bayonet to the chest, Sir. It were awful.”

“But,” Ben says.

“Major Talmadge, what intelligence did Brewster have on his person?” Washington asks, whirling on him.

“But, no,” Ben turns to the boy. “No, this is a mistake.”

The boys shrinks back. “I’m sorry, Sir.”

“But—”

“Major, I need you to think.”

“But he’s Caleb Brewster.” 

Any other day, the looks of pity that suddenly fill the tent would shame him into a rage, but he barely notices. Everyone’s voice is coming from very far away.

“That will be all, Private. Head to the doctor, have him look at you.” Washington’s voice is kind, and he pats the boy’s arm gently.

Suddenly it’s just the three of them, and Caleb’s hat placed on the table.

“Major, what intelligence—”

“I don’t— I have to—” Ben covers his mouth for a second, ears ringing.

Washington grips his shoulder. “Major, I want you to take tonight and think. What might Brewster have had on his person that is now in the hands of the enemy.”

“Right. Of course. Intelligence.”

“Ben,” Washington says, and Ben looks up. “Take tonight. I’m sorry.”

And with that Billy guides him out of the tent and into the sun. Everything feels very far away, like perhaps he’s drunk; he can’t hear properly. 

“Let’s get you to your tent, Major,” Billy says kindly. 

"Thank you, Billy,” he says softly. “Might I ask you for a favor?”

“Of course, Sir.”

“If you can find Mrs. Strong, will you please tell her I need to . . . I need to—”

“Indeed I will, Sir.”

Ben does not go inside, but sits on the makeshift bench at the front of his tent. He looks down at his hands, and they seem oddly clean.

“Ben?” 

He’s not sure how long he’s been sitting when Billy comes back with Anna.

“Here you are, Ma’am. And I’m sorry, truly.” Billy gives them both a nod and departs.

“Sorry, what—? Ben,” she takes a step towards him and freezes. “No.”

“Anna—”

“No, oh no. It’s Abe. No, no—” She kneels down beside him, reaching for his hands.

“It’s not— Anna, stop.”

“What happened, please, what happened?”

“Caleb.”

Anna waits. “Caleb what?”

“Caleb—” He feels like his words are coming from very far away, like he has to walk ten miles to reach them and ten miles back to get them out.

“What did Caleb hear?”

“It’s Caleb.”

Anna stares at him. “What is?”

“It’s him. He’s— He’s gone. He’s dead, he’s gone. He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s dead—”

Anna leans up and grabs his shoulders. “No,” she says, almost chiding him, correcting his mistake.

“They got him, Anna.” He covers his mouth again, hating himself for speaking, hating the way his hands are shaking.

“But it can’t— He’s Caleb Brewster.”

Ben almost laughs, then, but it chokes him on the way out. The next thing he’s aware of his the fabric of Anna’s sleeve against his eyes and the feeling of her strong hand pressing against his chest, keeping him upright.

“Ben, oh, Ben,” she’s murmuring into his ear, rocking him like a child and he can’t feel the shame, can’t feel anything over the rushing emptiness in his chest, like a waterfall, a deadly whirlpool in the heart of him, stealing his breath, his voice, his sight, his thought.

Anna catches him before he hits the ground.

\---

Caleb has said nothing. Not when they dug scraps of fabric out of his wound, when they slapped him awake and stitched him shut, when they pressed unkind and unclean fingers under the skin of him, where he bled. He has hissed, slightly, between clenched teeth, and he has laughed, and he has sung the same verse of  _Spanish Ladies_  over and over and over until they finally stopped his mouth with a strap of leather.

He’s passed out a few times, quite sure he was dead. He saw his uncle, strangely, standing over him, and had he not known he’d been taken and known down to his bones he must stay silent, he would have called out when the old man turned his back and walked away. Certain moments he thought he’d seen Anna, Abe, Samuel, Thomas. Even Ben, once, and he’d bitten his lips bloody to not call out as he saw his friend look away and turn his back.

He’s also faked unconsciousness long enough to grab a needle from the doctor’s tray, still sticky with his own blood. He tucks it between his palms, down near where his wrists are bound by sturdy ropes. 

They’ve saved him, on Simcoe’s orders, so he’s fit for interrogation. He should be thankful they think him worth questioning, for without treatment his wound was sure to be fatal. He’s sitting upright now, hidden away in a tent at the edge of their camp. They haven’t tied him to the chair, but between the blood loss and the presence of two redcoats, he doesn’t seem as much of a threat. Simcoe has an assistant, an older man with a wizened face and unpleasant and ever-present grin.

Simcoe asked a few questions to start, to gauge his level of cooperation. A few blows to the face and a hard club to the ribs gives them nothing, so he nods to the old man and takes a seat across from them.

The old man binds his right leg to a board of some kind, similar to the splints he’s seen used on broken legs. His instinct is to protest that nothing happened to his leg in the attack, but knows better than that. When he’s tied in tightly, Simcoe leans forward, resting his hands on his knees.

“Lieutenant Brewster,” he says in his odd voice. “Who is Samuel Culper?”

Caleb doesn’t spare him a glance, watching the old man and wondering what kind of pain to prepare for. The man picks up a hammer and what looks like thick, blunt chisel and sets it again’s Caleb’s ankle. For a moment he wonders if they mean to amputate his foot, but when the man strikes it’s not sharp enough to cut the skin. He feel bone crack and bites nearly through his lip to keep in the scream.

“I’ll ask again, Lieutenant. Who are the spies on Long Island?”

Caleb breathes harshly through his nose, screwing up his eyes to not see the old man shift his tools to the other side of his ankle. When the blow comes he wonders if the joint has come completely detached, and thinks he may lose consciousness for a moment.

“Mr. Christopher here can continue in this fashion for as long as I ask him to, Lieutenant. Surely you would rather I command him to stop.”

Caleb opens his eyes and glares at Simcoe.

“Very well,” the man says, and Mr. Christopher shifts to halfway up Caleb’s shin.

“I’ll need the bigger hammer, if you please, Captain,” the old man says, and his voice has a West Country burr that could almost be friendly in another context.

“Certainly,” Simcoe replies and hands him a mallet from the table at his back.

The next two blows come in quick succession, and beyond the cloud of pain Caleb spares a thought for his days on the run, steering his whaleboat, his good sea legs keeping him strong against a mighty gale.

“One more, Mr. Christopher, and I think we’ll be all set here.”

The final blows come right below his knee, and he does scream, then. When he comes to he’s alone with the Captain, who has pulled his chair up close, and the splint has been removed from his ruined leg.

“Tell me about the spies on Long Island,” he asks again. Caleb merely stares at him. With one boot, he presses down hard on Caleb’s right foot, and he can feel fragments of bone rub together.

“Tell me what you know, Lieutenant. What intelligence were you bringing back to Washington?”

“I was to tell him,” Caleb gasps out. “That Captain Simcoe is a yellow-bellied weevil, and couldn’t find his way out of an outhouse in high summer.”

Simcoe kicks him again and he sings back, “For we will be jolly and drown melancholy.” He only stops when a blow to the face makes him see white.

“You needn’t pretend, Lieutenant, that you’ll be returning to Washington. You’ve said your last farewell to dear Setauket. Though I can’t think who you might be missing there, since we did execute your next of kin.”

He doesn’t rise to it, but it’s exhaustion as much as it is good sense.

“You’ve had quite a run, and for that I do commend you,” Simcoe says, giving him a mock bow. “You’ve evaded capture for far longer than a simple privateer has any right to. Rogers didn’t get you, but your luck ran out the day I was appointed to the Queens Rangers.”

He leans in close and slides his fingers under the bandage on Caleb’s chest, pressing his fingers into the wound and grinning terribly.

“Here’s the thing, Captain,” Caleb says, voice like gravel, twisting his wrists just so, just slowly. “There’s a difference between you and Rogers. And there’s a difference between you and me. You like killing and you love pian, I know that and I see that, and you try all you can so you can kill as many and as bloody as you like. But at the end of the day,  _Sir_ , you’re a soldier. And at the end of the day, I am not.”

He lunges forward, then, on his good left leg, and plunges the needle into Simcoe’s left eye. 

The man screams, hands flying to Caleb’s wrists, but he does not back down, twisting and stabbing and throwing all his weight at Simcoe’s face. He lands on top of him, hard, and tries to ignore the blood and fluid covering his fingers.

“Here is what I believe,  _Captain_ ,” he grits out, shifting to kneel on Simcoe’s throat with his good leg, willing his right knee to hold out long enough to hold him, fingers still moving with the needle to keep the man distracted enough not to fight. “I believe that you are a mortal man, though you may have fooled many others. And your day of reckoning is here.” He presses down hard into Simcoe’s throat, holding his head still and fighting the awful bucking and writhing of him until he is still. He holds on for another long moment, counting breaths until he reaches twenty before moving off of the body. He falls to his side, then, growling through his pain and spitting in the Captain’s bloody face.

“This is what you get,” he says. “For your torture. Who’ll come running when they hear screams? Who’ll come to save you.”

He rises up, then, and immediately falls onto his good knee. There’s no hope of him walking out of the tent, not unassisted, so he works his way over to Simcoe’s musket and scrapes his restraints agains the bayonet until he is free. He unloads the gun, regretting the lack of protection he’s leaving himself, but choosing to risk capture rather then blowing off his one good foot, and turns it upside down, leaning agains the stock. He only has a minute at the most before someone notices the silence and comes to check on them, but luckily the interrogation tent is at the farthest edge of the camp. He can’t imagine the redcoat officers enjoy the screams of captured Patriots interrupting their meals. He takes the bayonet and slices the bottom ties in the back of the tent and slips through as quietly as he can. He’s awkward and lumbering using the too-short musket as a crutch, but he finds a privy-ditch to duck into while a patrol passes by. He tries not to retch at the smell and the thought of shit rubbing into his wounds, and pulls himself up by the strength left in his arms alone. 

There’s moment then, balanced on the edge of the ditch and a few short steps from the forest and freedom, when he considers giving up. He’s killed Simcoe, he’s given up no information, he could call his job well done and end this business. But the memory of Ben’s face lighting up as he rides back into camp, of Abe on his first smuggling mission, sharing his wine and laughing at his stories, of Anna’s firm jaw as she stares into the face of danger, all of them flit in front of him like flames, guttering out and leaping up until he’s sure he’s lost consciousness again. He finds something within him, a deeper reserve of power that he’s sure he’s never reached before, and hauls himself upright and into the trees.

\---

On the fifth day since the news came, Billy Lee sits down beside Ben as he pores over a thick stack of paper, two bowls in his hands.

“General Washington says you’re to eat today, Major, and no arguments.”

“I eat,” Ben says, not looking up from his work.

“If you do you’re mighty quiet about it. No one’s seen you take so much as a bite in days. The General said I’m to sit here and eat a meal with you, and not to leave until I’ve seen you taken care of.”

Ben sighs and shifts his papers out of the way. “Sit down then, if you must. I have enough manners left in me that I won’t make you stand here all day.”

Camp food is never enjoyable on the best day, but the stale bread and thin stew feel like ashes in his mouth. He can’t blame Billy, or the General, for watching over him, and indeed he should be thanking them for their patience. He knows his work has suffered, no matter how much extra time he tries to devote to scouting reports and requisitions. Long stretches pass while he works when he finds himself staring down at the paper, unseeing, or reading the same three lines over and again while understanding nothing.

Anna has been kind, gently but firmly guiding him to bed when the fires start to burn low, offering to stay with him as long as he likes, never mind propriety. The first night she’d stayed up with him, curled up on his cot and speaking lower than a whisper about Caleb, about Abe, about Samuel and Thomas and Selah and home. Nothing said in the dark will be repeated out in the daylight, and after that first night he’d sent her off with a squeeze to her hand and laid alone with his blankets wrapped tight in his arms, struggling to breathe.

Billy keeps him company in silence, a habit of his station but at this moment also a kindness. When they finish he gives Ben a nod and leaves him be, staring down and the empty space on his desk. He’s about to dive back in when a commotion catches his attention across the camp. He doesn’t rise immediately, feeling as though his energy is held far away from him on an island somewhere that he cannot freely access it.

One of the dragoons comes rushing by him, panting. “Major, Sir. A civilian, I think. Asking for you by name.”

“For me? What does he want?”

“I don’t know, Sir, he looks right awful. All he’ll say is your name, Sir, can’t get anything else out of him. We’re taking him to the doctor quick as we can.”

Ben shakes himself clear of his fatigue and rises to follow. The man they’ve brought in is supported by two soldiers, head to toe covered in mud and blood and putting no weight on his right leg. His wild hair and beard obscure most of his face, and he’s wearing nothing but breeches and a torn shirt despite the chill in the air. He seems to be raving, eyes unseeing as he repeats “Ben. Ben Talmadge.” 

Ben freezes. “ _Caleb?”_ he asks, breathless and terrified.

The soldiers holding the wounded man stop to stare. 

“Brewster?” one says in disbelief, “Christ, it’s Brewster!”

“Lads, lads!” the other yells, looking around to the watching crowd. “It’s Brewster! He’s alive, Brewster’s alive!”

A cheer goes up, more men running towards the sound of the commotion, and Ben walks forward as if in a trance, refusing to even blink.

Caleb doesn’t seem to hear the shouting or see any of them. “Ben,” he says again, voice tight with pain. “Ben Talmadge.”

“Caleb,” he manages, replacing the soldier on Caleb’s right side. “I’m here, I’ve got you. You made it.”

“Ben, where’s—”

“I’m here.” He’s glad for the cheers and commotion surrounding them as they lurch towards the medical tent. No one can hear how uneven his voice is. “I’ve got you, Caleb.”

Caleb turns his head and his eyes slowly begin to focus on Ben’s face.

“Oh, thank Christ,” he whispers and then collapses into a dead weight.

\---

Anna makes him leave so the doctors can work. He hears the word “amputation” on his way out of the medical tent and it takes all of her not-inconsiderable strength to keep him from dashing back in.

“You won’t be helping. There’s nothing you can do to help. Ben, no.”

“I should be with him,” he argues, even as he lets her push him back towards his tent. “Someone should be in there with him. In case he needs— You know he might need—”

“There’s no room, Ben, let the doctors work.”

She deposits him on his cot and sits down beside him, holding both of his hands firm and steady.

“He’s alive,” Ben whispers. “He has to be. He can’t have come all this way to—”

“Hush. Hush, Ben. He’ll live, he must.”

\---

When they finally let him in, Caleb is asleep, face pale and still blood-streaked, sheet pulled up to his chest. Ben doesn’t look at his legs, or the way the sheet falls to the bed to sharply on his right side. He finds a chair in the corner of the tent and carries it over, sitting and taking Caleb’s still hand in his own.

“You’ll be all right,” he says softly, feeling a bit foolish. “You made it back; you made it home. You’ll tell me all about where you’ve been and what you’ve done, yes? Christ, you’re a sight.”

Caleb doesn’t stir, his chest rising and falling gently. Ben drums his fingers on the edge of the bed for a moment before rising to find some relatively clean water.

“Hardly cleaned you up at all, did they?” It doesn’t feel right, the silence, and he’s glad the doctors are attending patients elsewhere. “Couldn’t recognize you when you came in, almost. None of the others knew it was you. Fully undercover, you were.”

He wets a clean bandage and sit on the edge of the cot, trying not to wake Caleb as tries to clean the worst of the mud and filth from his face and neck.

“There, that’s better. There you go.” He moves on to Caleb’s arms and hands, whatever skin he can reach. 

“You cleaning me up for burial, Tallboy?” His voice is too soft, a little too flat, but Ben has been so sure he’d never hear it again that it seems his stomach and his heart have switched places.

“Caleb,” is all he manages to say, holding on to his friend’s shoulder and pushing the overgrown hair back from his face.

“Told you I’d be back, didn’t I?”

“You did. Yes, you did. God, Caleb, they said you were dead.”

He shifts and winces, hand going to his chest. “Think I was there for a bit. Wanted me alive, though, so my luck held out. Not for long, mind, but long enough.”

“Caleb—”

“They got nothing. You can tell Washington that; I gave them nothing.”

“I know. Jesus, Caleb, I don’t care.”

Caleb laughs a little, bitter and pained. “Hardly suits your position, that.”

“I don’t care. I can’t believe—I thought you were gone, and then I thought you’d come all the way here just to die on me in person.”

“I haven’t? What’s the doctor saying?”

Ben grabs onto his hands. “You’ll live. God only knows how, you maniac, but you’ll live.”

Caleb closes his eyes for a long breath, and he almost looks frail. It’s pains Ben, something around his ribs pulling too tight at the look of him, grey and hurting and diminished somehow. He suddenly wishes he could get closer than his chair, could get inside his skin and fix whatever’s gone wrong, replace what he’s lost.

“I suppose I’m not so useful anymore, eh, Major?” It might sound light-hearted if you aren’t looking at him, but he won’t open his eyes. “Hardly worth keeping around, a courier with one—” he swallows hard “—with only one—”

“Caleb.” Ben leans forward, as close as he can, onto his knees beside the cot. “Look at me. Please, look at me. That’s never going to happen.”

Caleb looks, but he laughs, bitterly.

“I swear. I swear to you, my— my dearest friend, I swear it. That will never happen.”

Caleb swallows again, winces a little. “I promise you, I gave them nothing. No matter what, Tallboy, I promise.”

“I know.” With just the two of them there, it doesn’t matter that his eyes have gone wet and his throat has gone rough and Caleb’s hand is gentle on the back of his neck. “I don’t care. I just wanted you back.”

“Simcoe’s dead.”

“What?”

“Finally kept my promise, eh? Quite a day of keeping promises.”

“How?”

“I’ll make my report later, shall I? Proper debrief. Only let me lay here a minute. Just stay by me, if you will.”

He pulls Ben in, or maybe Ben just goes, pressing his cheek to the filthy, torn shirt and breathing in the smell of life. Blood and violence and war distilled into one scent, beautiful in it’s simplicity. Another day it might turn his stomach but today it means  _he lived, he lived, he lives._

There’s a gasp from the entrance to the tent and he makes himself sit back.

“Caleb!” Anna is on him in a flash, taking in his leg, his chest, feeling his forehead for fever. “Oh thank the Lord, thank the Lord!”

“There’s my pretty Annie,” Caleb grins up at her, and if she notices something lacking in it she’s kind enough to ignore it.

“They said you were killed, but I never believed it.”

“No?”

“Not for a minute,” her tears belie her words, and he does smile truly at that. “Not Caleb Brewster, I said.”

“Then I suppose it was your thought that brought me home.”

He reaches out for her hand, then Ben’s, holding them in close. There is plenty more to say, and more decisions to be made, but for the moment all that needs to be shared is breath, a pulse, belief.


End file.
